FOLLOWED
photography, video-art installation
WINDHAM ART SPACE, WILLIMANTIC, CT
Taylor Swift is one of the most followed people in our society. While I use the term ‘followed’ in a modern sense, as to describe her popularity on social media platforms (183M+ net followers on Instagram & Twitter), I also mean this quite literally. According to taylorpictures.net, 18,242 candid photographs were taken of Taylor by professional paparazzi in 2014 alone. The shots range from high quality close-ups of her leaving her apartment, to grainy images from miles away while on vacation. These photographs have become a staple in celebrity-fan culture, especially on social media platforms, creating an insatiable demand.
In this project, through photoshop & web-coding, I have made myself the focus of the what is currently Taylor Swift’s constantly surveilled life. In replacing only her name and face with my own, the mass quantity of images that intrigue thousands of people online daily, suddenly lose their appeal. Instead, the viewer is left with an unsettling number of photos, articles, comments, and obsessive posts that objectify, attack and stalk me — a nameless twenty-something girl that in many ways is no different than Taylor Swift.
Does success really warrant all of this?